andresreaza

When I go to the library with my long list of books to read, and my tiny-town library has not a single title in evidence, I usually browse the shelves and pick up things randomly. This was one of those books. I do have a process (shocking, I'm sure). It's not totally random. I look for authors by whom the library has a stocked a lot of books. This means people like this author. They want to read more. I discovered Elizabeth Berg this way, and the delightful Miss Julia series. Yes, I said delightful, and yes, I meant it. Anyway, Anne Rivers Siddons better be paying rent to the Thomas Beaver Library, because she's taking up a good chunk of the S section. I picked Up River because it got some glowing reviews on the jackets of other books. I really liked the beginning. The main character was feisty yet wounded, and I really related to her and wanted her to do well. As the hits kept coming, never letting up an iota, as though the author was constructing this novel as an example of how to "ratchet up the tension" in a creative writing class, I was able to forgive because the woman really toughed it through. But when the book leaves Atlanta for Martha's Vineyard, things took a turn for the worse. I didn't like the new cast of characters, I liked the old ones, the ones she was dealing with the beginning of the book. I didn't like the death and disease, the swans annoyed me, I mean jeez, get over yourself and get back to Atlanta to shove that hussy out of your house! So I skimmed the rest of the book, pouncing on the all-too-brief moments when the main character heard news from Atlanta, and it ended very unsatisfactorily. Maybe I'm too action-oriented. I don't know.

2023-02-08 07:27